History Crash Course #58: Jewish Life in America

Jews gained untold riches in America, at the cost of their heritage and spirituality.

When we last left off the Jews of America ― at the beginning of the 19th century ― there were only about 6,000 of them. The idea that there was freedom in America as long as you were not "too Jewish," kept most Jews away.

That changed in the 1820s when the Jews of Germany began to arrive.

The German Jews were not "too Jewish." They were either Reform Jews who had dropped the basic tenets of traditional Judaism (see Part 54 for details), or they were "enlightened" secular Jews who had dropped Judaism altogether.

By 1850 there were about 17,000 Jews living in America. By 1880 there were about 270,000.

Most of these Jews moved to the New York area, which at this time had a Jewish population of 180,000. It would soon grow to 1.8 million.

In New York City, the Jewish area was the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The ones who made it quickly moved up to the Upper East Side. And these Jews did remarkably well in the New World. Some famous names of those who made it rich quick were:

Joseph Seligman, who started our as a peddler and who became one of the most important bankers in America.

These are just a few famous names. There were many others.(1)

American Reform Movement

The German Jews of New York built the largest Reform synagogue in the world, Temple Emanuel on the Upper East Side, and many others. By 1880 there were about 200 synagogues in America, the majority (90%) of them Reform, because these were the Jews who were coming to America from Germany.

With this migration, the focus of the Reform Movement moved from Germany to the United States. In America, the Reform movement continued in the tradition of its German origins, spelling out its ideology in the famous "Pittsburgh Platform," which was drawn up and adopted in 1885 at a Pittsburgh convention of its leadership:

"We recognize in the Mosaic legislation a system of training the Jewish people for its mission during its national life in Palestine, and today we accept as binding only its moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives, but reject all such as are not adopted to the view and habits of modern civilization...

"We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state...

"We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state... (2)

This last statement ― which detached the American Reform Movement from the 2,000-year-old Jewish longing to return to the Land of Israel (in imitation of the ideology espoused by the German Reform Movement) ― is the reason why early American Reform Jews did not support the Zionist Movement, or the foundation of the State of Israel, as we shall see in future installments.

Hebrew Union College

The founding father of the American Reform Movement was Isaac Meyer Wise (1819 to 1900). He was a German Jewish immigrant who was the founder and the first president of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, which opened in 1875. It was the first American rabbinical seminary, and it had unusually liberal standards. Writes Joseph Telushkin in Jewish Literacy (p. 393):

"One issue that sets the Reform rabbinate apart... is its refusal to impose any religious standards on its rabbis. In many ways, this is a continuation of Reform's historical commitment to free inquiry. Today, quite literally, there is no religious action a Reform rabbi can take for which he or she would be thrown out of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the official body of Reform rabbis."

When, in 1883, the first graduating class of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati was ready to receive its diplomas, the seminary threw a lavish banquet.

The more traditional attendees were horrified when course after course presented one traif [non-kosher] dish after another: clams, soft-shell crabs, shrimps, frogs' legs, and a meat meal followed by ice cream.(3)

The so-called "traif banquet" compelled the more traditional Jews ― who thought that the Reform had gone too far but who did not want to be Orthodox ― to find another alternative, and it led to the founding of another movement within Judaism.

The Conservative Movement

In 1886, more traditional Jews who were offended by the ideology of the Reform Movement founded an alternative to the Hebrew Union College. It was called the Jewish Theological Seminary, and it became the bastion of the new, purely-American, Conservative Movement.

The head of the Jewish Theological Seminary, a respected Jewish scholar from Cambridge, England, named Solomon Schechter (1850-1915) helped shape the ideology of the new movement. In his work, "The Catholic Israel," Solomon Schechter spelled it out. (He chose a poor title for his work ― by "catholic" he meant "universal.")

"It is not the mere revealed Bible that is the first importance to the Jew but the Bible as it repeats itself in history. In other words, as it is interpreted by tradition. Another consequence of this conception of tradition is that neither scripture nor primitive Judaism but general custom which forms the real rule of practice. Liberty was always given to the great teachers of every generation to make modifications and innovations in harmony with the spirit of existing institutions. Hence a return to Mosaism [Orthodoxy] would be illegal, pernicious and indeed, impossible." (4)

In other words, the ideology of the Conservative Movement would be to uphold the Torah as the revealed word of God, but that the interpretation of that word of God need not uphold the tradition as passed down from Moses.

This was a dramatic departure from the traditional attitude toward the interpretation and application of Jewish law. One of the pillars of traditional Jewish belief was (and is) that the Talmud is THE source for all Jewish law and that those rabbis who lived closer to the revelation at Mount Sinai had a clearer understanding of Jewish law and its application, and therefore their decisions could NOT be discarded. New rulings on modern issues must take into account established principles. (See Part 39)

When the Conservative Movement discarded this pillar of traditional Judaism, it opened a door to countless problems. The end result was that, although the founders of the movement felt Reform had gone too far, the behavior of their followers proved virtually indistinguishable from those of Reform Jews. (We will discuss these repercussions further when we take up the subject of assimilation in a future installment.)

The Great Migrations

This then was the spiritual state of the majority of American Jewry ― defined chiefly by the German Jews who migrated in the 1830s ― when the great migrations from Eastern Europe began around the turn of the century.

How many Jews came to America in this time period?

As noted earlier (see Part 57) between 1881 and 1914, some 50,000 Jews left Eastern Europe every year to a total of 2.5 million Jews, most of whom came to America.

The vast majority of these Jews were poor and arrived in New York with little or nothing. They had little to lose in coming to America (except perhaps their Judaism).

And, alas, this is what happened. The great rabbis did not come among them, and lacking teachers and religious leaders to act against the pressures from the Americanized German Jews, these poor Eastern European Jews assimilated quickly. (We will examine the problem of assimilation in America in future installments.)

The pious, yeshiva-educated Jews did not come in the great migrations. For the most part, the rabbis ― fearing that America was the Golden Land of Assimilation disguised as the Golden Land of Economic Opportunity ― preached against immigration.

The greatest test for vast majority of these new arrivals was the issue of the Sabbath. America in the late 18th and early 19th centuries had a six day work week. Sunday was the only day of rest. Many of the new arrivals found work in the garment industry working in the sweat shops. It was miserable work, for minimal wages, and often under appalling conditions. The Philadelphia-born social worker, Charles Bernheimer, described the conditions in a Philadelphia sweatshop in 1905:

Before you have reached the shop, you have probably climbed one, two or three flights of stairs, littered with debris...The room is likely to be ill-smelling and badly ventilated...Consequently, an abnormally bad air is breathed which is difficult for the ordinary person to stand long. Thus result tubercular and other diseases which the immigrants acquires in his endeavor to work out his economic existence...If we apply our ordinary standards of sanitation to these shops they certainly come below such standards...In [the] busy season the employees are required to work long hours, sometimes as high as fifteen, perhaps eighteen, a day.(5)

Under these conditions, taking Saturday off for Sabbath observance was simply not an option if you wanted to keep your job and if you lost your job finding new employment wasn't so easy. Those who tried to keep Shabbat by not coming to work were immediately fired. The result was that the overwhelming majority stopped observing Shabbat. Once Sabbath observance was dropped the rest of Jewish observance usually followed. This same story repeated itself countless times until virtually all those who arrived in America as observant Jews dropped their religious observance soon after their arrival.

This is not to say that things were good in Eastern Europe ― far from it. Two hundred years of Czarist Russian persecution and economic marginalization had taken a tremendous toll on the Jewish community. The anti-Semitism was constant, the hardships were many and the poverty was great. Spiritually and ideologically the Jewish community was also under tremendous attack and beginning to crumble from the onslaught. The lure of the secular enlightenment and other ideologies such as Marxism and socialism drew many Jews away from religious observance and even took some of the brightest out of the Yeshivot. Many of the maskilim (Jewish secular intellectuals, see part 57) came from observant homes and even studied in the great Yeshivot of Eastern Europe.(6)

There can be little doubt that had the Nazis not snuffed out Jewish life in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust, the community would have gradually disintegrated under the internal strain and external pressure. Still the rabbinic leadership of Eastern Europe felt that the spiritual abyss of America posed a far greater threat than life in Eastern Europe-especially because it lacked virtually any Orthodox infrastructure.

Writer Arthur Hertzberg in The Jews of America (p. 157):

"In 1893, the most distinguished moralist among the rabbis of Europe, Israel Meir Ha-Kohen [better known as the Chafetz Chaim]... went beyond exhortation; he ruled against mass migration to America. He knew that this emigration could no longer be stopped, but he pleaded with those who would heed the views of rabbis to prefer persecution in Russia to economic success in the United States...

"These opinions became so fixed that they would remain firm among the major leaders of European Orthodoxy even in the inter-war period, as the situation of European Jewry was radically worsening for all Jews, for all socio-economic classes."

Despite the decision by most of the rabbinic leadership to remain in Europe a number of important rabbis did arrive and began to lay the foundations for what would later become the thriving orthodox community of the United States. Some of the more notable personalities included:

Rabbi Yaacov Joseph from Vilna, who in 1887 became the first and only "Chief rabbi" of New York.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein who arrived in 1936 to lead the Mesivta Tiferet Yerushalayim Yeshiva in New York. He went on to become the foremost halachik (legal) authority in the Jewish world.

Rabbi Eliezer Silver who became the leader of the Orthodox rabbinate in America-the Agudas HaRabonim.

Rabbi Shragga Feivael Mendlowitz who founded the first Orthodox school system, Torah Umesorah, in 1944.

Rabbi Aharon Kotler who founded the Lakewood Yeshiva in 1943 and was the driving force behind the growth of Orthodox Judaism in America.

Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik and his son, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik who were the rabbinic leadership of Yeshiva University in New York

The Tired and the Poor

While the German Jews for the most part succeeded easily in America, life was much harder for the Eastern European Jews who came in the great migrations. We find, for example, at the beginning of the 1900s there were 64,000 families packed into 6,000 tenement houses of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

These poor, Yiddish-speaking, religious Jews reflected badly on the German Jews that came before them and who by this time had become quite Americanized. Therefore, the German Jews set out to get these Russian Jews to acculturate as quickly as possible and they invested heavily in this cause.

Their underlying fear was anti-Semitism. This fear was real, because despite the religious tolerance of America, anti-Semitism was alive and doing well in the New World. There were no pogroms, but there was social isolation and other types of discrimination.

For example, in 1843, a dozen young men applied for membership to the Old Fellows Lodge, but were refused membership because they were Jews. (They organized a club of their own ― called the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith.)

Another example: in 1869, Joseph Seligman, the well-known banker, was refused hotel accommodations in Saratoga Springs, New York, the summer resort for the well-to-do of his day because he ― no matter how rich and famous ― was a Jew.

If those Jew who made it were not good enough to mingle with American non-Jews, one can just imagine how the unwashed immigrant masses were viewed.

In 1894, Henry Adams (a descendant of John Quincy Adams) organized the Immigration Restriction League to limit the admission to America of "unhealthy elements" ― Jews being first among these.

In his famous book, The Education of Henry Adams, he wrote about those he was trying to keep out of America:

"Not a Polish Jew fresh from Warsaw or Cracow ― not a furtive Jacoob or Ysaac still reeking of the Ghetto, snarling a weird Yiddish to the officers of the customs..."

He found many supporters for his cause, but he did not win. Indeed, one might say he lost when in 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed a Jew ― Oscar Straus ― as the first Jew to serve in the U.S. cabinet, and as the secretary of commerce and labor (whose purview of responsibility was immigration).

However, the anti-Semites did not give up easily, as we will see next when we examine the factors which led to the baring of the evil face of anti-Semitism in the 20th century.

(1) For a fascinating look at Jewish life in America in the 19th and early 20th centuries see Stephen Birmingham's books: "Our Crowd-The Great Jewish Families of New York" and "The Rest of Us-The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews."
(2) Ronald H. Isaacs & Kerry M. Olitzky editors, Critical Documents of Jewish History. (Jason Aronson Inc., 1995), pp.58-59.
(3) Ronald H. Isaacs & Kerry M. Olitzky editors, Critical Documents of Jewish History. (Jason Aronson Inc., 1995), pp. 60-61.
(4) Paul Mendes-Flohr & Yehuda Reinharz ed., The Jew in the Modern World, (Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 497-498.
(5) Paul Mendes-Flohr & Yehuda Reinharz ed., The Jew in the Modern World, (Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 481-82. Given these terrible conditions and the strong sense of social justice that has always been a part of the Jewish people, it is no wonder that Jews played such a crucial role in creating labor unions and fighting for worker's rights and against child labor.
(6) One of the best examples was Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934) who is considered the poet laureate of modern Hebrew and one on the leading Jewish intellectuals of his age. Born in southern Russia he attended the famous Volozhin Yeshiva, but broke with traditional Judaism at age 18.

Featured at Aish.com:

About the Author

Rabbi Ken Spiro, originally from New Rochelle, NY, graduated from Vassar College with a BA in Russian Language and Literature and did graduate studies at the Pushkin Institute in Moscow. He has rabbinic ordination from Aish Jerusalem and a Masters Degree in History from Vermont College of Norwich University. Rabbi Spiro is also a licensed tour guide by the Israel Ministry of Tourism. He has appeared on numerous radio and TV programs such as BBC, National Geographic Channel and The History Channel. He lives near Jerusalem with his wife and five children, where he works as a senior lecturer for Aish Jerusalem.

In one volume, Crash Course in Jewish History explores the 4,000 years of Jewish existence while answering the great questions: Why have the Jewish people been so unique, so impactful, yet so hated and so relentlessly persecuted?

Crash Course in Jewish History is not only comprehensive and readable, it is also entertaining and enlightening. Novices and scholars alike will find Crash Course in Jewish History to be thought-provoking and insightful, as well as a valuable and relevant guide to understanding the challenges we all face in the 21st century.

Visitor Comments: 24

(24)
Samuel Rabison,
April 15, 2012 2:20 PM

I am trying to find information about a town in the Ukraine called Kamaren.

(23)
Leanne Martin,
June 30, 2009 7:46 AM

Thank you

I am a Citizenship and PSHE teacher in the U.K and I'm trying to teach about Jewish migration to America during WWII. I would just like to say thank you to those who created this site. It has really helped me, personally, understand the reasons and the difficulties faced by those who migrated. Thank you.

(22)
Debra,
February 15, 2008 9:59 PM

wow, great synopsis

I really enjoyed this! I had no idea of the facts, fugures, and philosophies that shaped the immigration of my own ancestors. Thank you!

(21)
Thomas Sebastian,
January 25, 2008 8:51 PM

A Big Thank You

Dear Respected Rabbi I have been trying to send my commets however last few times I could not due to unknown reasons My comments often used to be short because of short of time I am on winter break so could spend more time now Although not immediately connected to this series of your work let me just comment you have mentioned the freedom Jews experienced in America the concept of Freedom is the most important Jewish contribution to politics and human history and this subsequently generated all other political concepts and their attendant socio-political movement and let me extend A Big Thank You

(20)
Grace Fishenfeld,
January 24, 2008 7:03 PM

We Are Still Here

My parents were children of emigrants. Making a living was very important and much time was spent onworking in order to survive. Shabat was still a part of our lives. I grew up in an American Jewish neighborhood in East New York, Brooklyn. We celebrated the holidays and walked, all dressed up to each of our relatives.Our little Hendrix Street shulwas humble but spiritual. Not to worry, Jewishness lives. There is a problem with the teaching of the young in chada, My husband and his friends do not recall anything learned or pleasant about their Bar Mitzvah preparation. Chada was just that. Very little Jewish education went on there and it was a negative experience. Only after reaching adulthood did our friends desire to explore our Jewish heritage. We are secular Jews who are in love with being Jewish. We read about Judaism. We discuss ethics and believe in Tsudikah. Our support for Israel is firm and our children know who they are. You may find our relationship to orthodoxy wanting. We respect the different forms by which Judaism can live on.

(19)
Hugh Straus,
January 24, 2008 2:30 PM

Clear and easily readble.

This was a very readable column. It was especially fun for me when I saw mention of Uncle Oscar in the second to last paragraph.

(18)
thomas eby,
January 22, 2008 10:39 AM

Jewish life in America

This is a very good article and quite to the point. I find that there are many reasons that Jews from Europe have taken the easy route when in America. I do not think it was so much the fame and fortune that they could acquire but the freedom that they had to do so. All this freedom was a heady brew easily consumed. When faced with this they became more and more secular in all things instead of adhering to their orthodox ways. They could have maintained their orthodoxy and still assimilate into this new freedom tho it may have been more difficult. That is the problem that is not easily overcome.

If the Jews would have remembered Moses and what he encountered when he descended Mount Siani they would possibly have thought differently. We all know that Moses found his people in outrageous revelry over their freedom and forgot their God's deliverance meant freedom from slavery not from their belief's.

I have seen this time and again when people are given their freedom and it is a sad note that they abuse it instead of praising God for it.

How do people temper freedom and still maintain their closeness to God? That is the question.

Again, a very good article.Thomas Eby....

(17)
Arnold Goldstein,
May 16, 2006 12:00 AM

Very informative.

Found this an educational experience for
me. It tells me a lot about my religious heritage.

(16)
sunil singha,
September 22, 2005 12:00 AM

i found everything what i wantedgreat

great

(15)
Tim Sasse,
March 4, 2005 12:00 AM

Trying to Understand Christian History

As someone who is trying to understand Christian History, I have read through your series of articles. I am deeply touched and disturbed by the tragedy of the history of my own religion. What a horrible history it entails -- not only against Jews, but also against Muslims and others who didn't tow the party line. I wish every Christian would get a glimpse of what their own forefathers taught and did, perhaps it would promote positive change.

(14)
Menashe Kaltmann,
October 19, 2003 12:00 AM

America Situation is what happens all around the world

Again a well written article Rabbi Spira!
Although I am born here in Australia your article is very instructive. The Australian Jewish Community until World War 2 followed the same general path as the Jewish Community in America in the late 1800's and ealy 1900's.
The Community here was generally affluent but assimilated and very Anglo.
True some it should be noted tried valiantly to adhere to all Jewish Torah traditions, but only when Torah observant Jews came afeter World War 2 to Australia did the community here start to blossom.

Only when Torah is valued and Jewish children and adults learn Torah and keep Mitvot is there any hope a Jewish continuity and bright future. Otherwise regretably we will (G-d Forbid) stumble and follow what happened in America as described in this timely article.

(13)
Barbara Zweifler,
August 22, 2003 12:00 AM

Secular American Judaism

One portion of my family that came to the Lower East Side in the 1890's from Romania was the family of My Great Granmother's brother, Jacob Solomon, from Romania. He followed his older sister here. He and his family didn't make a year here, they felt that America was far too secular for them and they were not willing to alter their Jewish identity.
Back to Romania they went. One of Jacob's Grandaughters is alive today to tell me what happened - that whole section of our family was murdered in the holocaust.
So in his infinite wisdom I believe HaShem allowed this secularization in order to save the Jews entire. Imagine if everyone went back as Jacob did. We are already less than 1% of the world's population. I think we'd be gone by now.
Everything happens for a reason - many of us Great Grandchildren of the lower east side immigration are picking up our Judiasm despite the generations that let it lay between then and today. I never learned one thing about Judaism from my family untill I took it on myself.
There are many of us, in our late 30-s & into our 40's, who are rededicating ourselves to the covenant despite the lapse of the last century here in America.
Ani Tzioni!

(12)
Anonymous,
August 22, 2003 12:00 AM

Another honest article.

We are falling apart. To concerned with private lives. Day by day more and more of us forget what Israel is and should be to us and our children. More and more of us don't even know where the nearest synagogue is. Are we about to lose our identity so many Jews died for? Where are we going to be in 50 years? Chances are our grandchildren will not be able to find Israel on the map. We found riches in the US, true!! but we also are forgetting to help fellow Jews. We are one, we are like a family but the family is falling apart.

(11)
Isroel Akerman,
August 18, 2003 12:00 AM

Feel bad for so many souls lost

Friend of mine, who is about 70 now, said that the real characterictic of American Jews generations before the World War II, could be seen from the situation, that hundreds of huge gorgeous synagogues were build, but number of Jewish schools of that times did not exceed 10 (at list in New York area).
Even imigrant generations were somwhat traditional, lack of knoweledge wiped out next generation.

(10)
Anonymous,
August 18, 2003 12:00 AM

Excellent

A very well written, interesting history of American Judaism's early years.

(9)
Miriam,
August 17, 2003 12:00 AM

lack of knowledge led to ease of assimilation

Rabbi Spiro notes that the rabbis and teachers remained in Europe. What I have noticed in comments by many immigrants is a basic lack of Judaic knowledge or anger at the way Judaism was taught in the "old world". Because there was no societal pressure in the new world to be Jewish, this lack of true understanding of Judaism made assimilation inevitable. One might even see this as a blessing because it has forced many Jews to confront the emptiness of purely material pursuits and to reexamine the beauty of their Jewish heritage. Among those who practice today (at whatever level) it could be argued that there is more kavannah that amongst the many who practiced in Europe due to social constraints.

(8)
Anniteh Shatz (Zahne),
January 3, 2002 12:00 AM

Hidden Identity

The limitations of earning a living was again an issue facing most Jewish immigrants to America. The ownership of land or property, human rights, including the right to vote or hold office is new to America Jews, however limited.
To relinquish Jewish identity sometimes was the only option left in order to survive. We have to trust in the Divine connection, that at some point in the future all those lost will return, teshuvah.

(7)
Anonymous,
December 31, 2001 12:00 AM

Interesting format

I liked this email's format-simple , attractive and easy to find what one liked on it.The reader will enjoy the summary of Jewish history in the US and perhaps want to read about it further. It does provide food for thought for both Jews and non-Jews. Thank you for it. Am doing research on Clarion, Utah, the last Jewish homestead in the US. Do you have any info about it. My family lived there in the early 1900s. Many thanks for your good resources.

(6)
Sam Fisherowitz,
December 31, 2001 12:00 AM

Great

Just what was lacking in my yeshiva education 30 years ago and my kids day school education today. Can you get this into the educational curriculams of today's high school?

(5)
Anonymous,
December 31, 2001 12:00 AM

Bravo!!

I very much enjoy your "Crash Course In Jewish History". I have learned much and the course has also refreshed much in my memory. Keep up the excellent work!!

(4)
Anonymous,
December 31, 2001 12:00 AM

I love this article because I have a friend that she knows I'm jewish and she is always putting the jews down. She looks for things wrong that jewish people do here and calls me to critisize and condemm them . You might say wy Im her friend? I do love her in spite of her comments, and she has been a good friend in times of need. she is a christian and I pray for her. But now I can see why many jews are the way they are and why the do paganism. Now I can tell my friend about this,too bad she doesnt have a pc so that I could send her this article thru e-mail.
Thank you so much,
Shalom
Rebecca

(3)
Anonymous,
December 30, 2001 12:00 AM

Impressive brief summation of early American Jewish History

Fascinating reading and right-on analysis on the start of three types of Judaism in American.

(2)
Colin Campbell,
December 30, 2001 12:00 AM

Great Summary

Best overview of Jewish roots in America I have ever read. Without a thorough understanding of our roots in America, we cannot move forward. Should be required reading everywhere among Jews and non-Jew alike. With this understanding, one is forced to take a stand, determine where they are, and move forward with confidence. Thank you. Syndicated columnist, COLIN CAMPBELL. The Newspaper Priest.

(1)
William Bright,
December 30, 2001 12:00 AM

Has tolerance become king?

Shalom,
I live N.C.(USA) I work with many Cambodian Buddhists who tell me their monks here do not come close to meeting the requirements of their religion. They immigrated in the late 70's and early 80's after the rule of the Khmer Rouge. I am not comparing Judaism with Buddhism in any way, I am showing another example of how unrestrained tolerance has allowed a do what I want, instead of a do what is correct, society become a majority in the U.S. This country is allowing one to worship whatever he wants, and it is tolerated! False worship is destuctive, as is unrestrained tolerance. Thank you for your article.

I live in rural Montana where the Cholov Yisrael milk is difficult to obtain and very expensive. So I drink regular milk. What is your view on this?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Jewish law requires that there be rabbinic supervision during the milking process to ensure that the milk comes from a kosher animal. In the United States, many people rely on the Department of Agriculture's regulations and controls as sufficiently stringent to fulfill the rabbinic requirement for supervision.

Most of the major Kashrut organizations in the United States rely on this as well. You will therefore find many kosher products in America certified with a 'D' next to the kosher symbol. Such products – unless otherwise specified on the label – are not Cholov Yisrael and are assumed kosher based on the DOA's guarantee.

There are many, however, do not rely on this, and will eat only dairy products that are designated as Cholov Yisrael (literally, "Jewish milk"). This is particularly true in large Jewish communities, where Cholov Yisrael is widely available.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein wrote that under limited conditions, such as an institution which consumes a lot of milk and Cholov Yisrael is generally unavailable or especially expensive, American milk is acceptable, as the government supervision is adequate to prevent non-kosher ingredients from being added.

It should be added that the above only applies to milk itself, which is marketed as pure cow's milk. All other dairy products, such as cheeses and butter, may contain non-kosher ingredients and always require kosher certification. In addition, Rabbi Feinstein's ruling applies only in the United States, where government regulations are considered reliable. In other parts of the world, including Europe, Cholov Yisrael is a requirement.

There are additional esoteric reasons for being stringent regarding Cholov Yisrael, and because of this it is generally advisable to consume only Cholov Yisroel dairy foods.

In 1889, 800 Jews arrived in Buenos Aires, marking the birth of the modern Jewish community in Argentina. These immigrants were fleeing poverty and pogroms in Russia, and moved to Argentina because of its open door policy of immigration. By 1920, more than 150,000 Jews were living in Argentina. Juan Peron's rise to power in 1946 was an ominous sign, as he was a Nazi sympathizer with fascist leanings. Peron halted Jewish immigration to Argentina, introduced mandatory Catholic religious instruction in public schools, and allowed Argentina to become a haven for fleeing Nazis. (In 1960, Israeli agents abducted Adolf Eichmann from a Buenos Aires suburb.) Today, Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America with 250,000, though terror attacks have prompted many young people to emigrate. In 1992, the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 32 people. In 1994, the Jewish community headquarters in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 85 people. The perpetrators have never been apprehended.

Be aware of what situations and behaviors give you pleasure. When you feel excessively sad and cannot change your attitude, make a conscious effort to take some action that might alleviate your sadness.

If you anticipate feeling sad, prepare a list of things that might make you feel better. It could be talking to a specific enthusiastic individual, running, taking a walk in a quiet area, looking at pictures of family, listening to music, or reading inspiring words.

While our attitude is a major factor in sadness, lack of positive external situations and events play an important role in how we feel.

[If a criminal has been executed by hanging] his body may not remain suspended overnight ... because it is an insult to God (Deuteronomy 21:23).

Rashi explains that since man was created in the image of God, anything that disparages man is disparaging God as well.

Chilul Hashem, bringing disgrace to the Divine Name, is one of the greatest sins in the Torah. The opposite of chilul Hashem is kiddush Hashem, sanctifying the Divine Name. While this topic has several dimensions to it, there is a living kiddush Hashem which occurs when a Jew behaves in a manner that merits the respect and admiration of other people, who thereby respect the Torah of Israel.

What is chilul Hashem? One Talmudic author stated, "It is when I buy meat from the butcher and delay paying him" (Yoma 86a). To cause someone to say that a Torah scholar is anything less than scrupulous in meeting his obligations is to cause people to lose respect for the Torah.

Suppose someone offers us a business deal of questionable legality. Is the personal gain worth the possible dishonor that we bring not only upon ourselves, but on our nation? If our personal reputation is ours to handle in whatever way we please, shouldn't we handle the reputation of our nation and the God we represent with maximum care?

Jews have given so much, even their lives, for kiddush Hashem. Can we not forego a few dollars to avoid chilul Hashem?

Today I shall...

be scrupulous in all my transactions and relationships to avoid the possibility of bringing dishonor to my God and people.

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